


Timeline

by candle_beck



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: First Time, M/M, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-12
Updated: 2011-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:09:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candle_beck/pseuds/candle_beck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's closer-than-brothers, and then there's whatever the hell you guys are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Timeline

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted February 2005.

Timeline  
By Candle Beck

 

1\. After

Mulder gets up first, and his eyes are all fucked up, so he keeps them mostly closed. He kicks a pair of boxers and fishes them off his foot, sliding them on as he stumbles to the bathroom.

It’s not till he’s standing there waiting for the water to run hot, idly fiddling his thumb along the waistband and yawning, that pieces begin to come back to him, in fits and starts, like a bad dream he once had.

He watches his eyes open in the mirror, open very widely. He looks down and the boxers he’s wearing aren’t his. They’re tight, digging into his hips, red cotton and shorter than his and he recognizes them, because they’re Tim Hudson’s. The water pounding into the tub makes it hard to pay attention to anything else.

Mulder turns slowly and the bathroom door is open a crack because he wasn’t even thinking about it. He angles to see through and sees a pair of legs hanging off the end of the bed, bare feet with the bones looking astonishingly prominent through the skin. There’s an arm too, slung over the legs with a hand cupped around a kneecap.

Mulder kicks the bathroom door shut, falls back against it. He thinks he might be about to throw up.

*

Zito and Hudson come down to breakfast on the same elevator, but Hudson walks in a few yards ahead of him, which is strange because Zito’s legs are longer and Hudson has a tendency to saunter.

Zito is pale, and his shirt is on inside-out. Hudson looks pissed off, and when Chavez elbows him in greeting, he flinches so hard he knocks a glass off the table. Crosby asks where Mulder is and neither of them answers. Zito keeps rolling the spoon on his folded napkin, his eyes cast down. He’s biting his lip, and Hudson is as far away from him as he can get while still being at the same table.

*

Hudson has to go back to the room because his wallet fell out of his back pocket. God knows when. He also needs to get his boxers. These are his oldest and best-worn jeans, but they’re chafing the shit out of him.

Zito watches him as he leaves, but Hudson doesn’t look back.

The door is open. Just a bit, there’s a sock in the bottom. Hudson’s boxers are neatly folded on the dresser and his wallet is on top, dead center. The bed has been made, or at least, the comforter tossed on a skewed angle so one corner brushes the carpet, and the pillows are smashed together against the headboard, leaning one against another like friends.

The lights are off, curtains drawn, but the bathroom door is half ajar and throwing a yellow wedge out across the room. Hudson tucks his wallet in his back pocket, his boxers in his front pocket, and sort of takes a look into the bathroom, though he meant to just grab his shit and go.

Mulder is sitting on the toilet with half his face covered by shaving cream, jeans on and no shirt, and he’s staring at nothing in particular, his razor in his hand resting on his knee, spots of white on his fingers and the back of his hand. He looks like he’s in shock.

“Mark, hey,” Hudson says, and Mulder jerks, dropping his razor. He looks over and Hudson barely recognizes him, half finished with his face smeared and a pinprick of blood on the line of his jaw.

“Get out.”

Hudson swallows, and leaves.

*

Zito goes to his own room after breakfast and calls his parents. He thinks he sounds remarkably normal, and makes his mom laugh, and scribbles down the dates they’ll be in San Francisco a few weeks from now on the palm of his hand. He’s always forgetting to transfer hand-notes to paper, until he looks down during the fourth inning and realizes the ink has faded and been sweated off and can’t be read anymore.

He sits at the table by the window and tries to figure out where he is. The East Coast, sure. Beyond that, he’s lost. Pretty sure it’s not Boston, almost positive it’s not New York. Nothing looks familiar, except this hotel room, that bed, these hands shaking slightly on the table top.

Zito makes fists, thinks sadly, ‘this is what casual sex gets you.’ Thinks what if one of them had something, VD or something, and they all came down with it and the trainers found out. Zito hears sneering jokes about sharing hookers in his mind, and then tries his very best to stop thinking about it.

Hudson’s room is right next to his. Zito hears him come in, the door slamming behind him. Zito watches the connecting door, hears the television go on. Zito gets up and gets his iPod and turns the volume up high enough that the loud songs fuzz with static at the corners, and looks out the window for awhile longer.

* * *

2\. During

So, yeah. Drunk and then drunk some more. And every time Mulder moves, Zito gets scared that his shoulders are just going to crush him, flatten him down, because Mulder moves and his shoulders block out all the light.

And when he turns his head, there’s Hudson’s chest, bare chest with slight dark hair scattered around, and neither Mulder or Zito has hair on their chests, except Mulder, who has this little scruff right in the center, dirty blonde, so really it’s just Zito who doesn’t, but it’s okay.

Zito fits his mouth on Hudson’s chest, stunned that he is allowed, that this is actually happening, and he can pull his teeth across and leave small white scuffs on the skin, Hudson’s chest bumping his chin when Hudson breathes in real fast. Zito feels Mulder’s hand on his stomach, scratching lightly around his bellybutton and making Zito shiver and jerk because Mulder knows he’s ticklish, goddamn it. Hudson’s head is back, his hand in Zito’s hair. Mulder’s legs are all tied up with his own.

There’s a moment, right before Mulder’s hand slides down and in and around and starts jerking him off, when all Zito can feel is total amazement.

*

Hudson watches Mulder’s hand disappear into Zito’s shorts and feels Zito’s breath blow out hot against a wetted spot of his chest, feels Zito’s teeth close down compulsively and Hudson moans.

He looks and Mulder’s eyes are on him, and everything in the room is blue right now, because that’s the color of the light drafting from the television, but Mulder’s eyes are always that color, really, Hudson should have noticed before. Mulder’s hand is moving in a careful slow rhythm, and Zito is gasping and arching slightly between them, but Mulder is watching Hudson.

Hudson leans across and kisses him. Zito cranes his head up and his mouth goes to Hudson’s throat, his arm around Hudson’s back. Mulder kisses him like he’s got nothing to do for the rest of his life except this. It’s like drowning or something, it’s like not caring that he can’t get any air.

There’s a moment when he’s got Mulder’s tongue in his mouth and Zito’s hand clumsily pulling open his belt, and Hudson thinks about a photo shoot four or five years ago, how perfect all three of them looked back then.

*

There are all these arms and legs and hands, it’s confusing the hell out of him. Everywhere Mulder turns, there’s more skin, another elbow, two more knees clocking into his own. They’re on top of the covers, crumpling it all up, and Mulder keeps thinking that there will be a breeze and they’ll get goosebumps, shiver and crush nearer to each other, but it’s all heat, heat and slick and sweat on Mulder’s forehead, down his back.

He watches Zito’s face when he comes, this look of clean surprise on his face, oh wow hey, with Zito’s shoulders tense and high before he sags back. Hudson is moving his mouth over Mulder’s shoulder, awkwardly positioned with his hand braced on the headboard. Hudson’s very close when he whispers in Mulder’s ear, “Fuck him.”

Mulder’s whole world ends, right then, hearing Hudson say that to him and understanding it so clearly, the picture of it slamming into his mind and taking his breath away. Hudson kisses him, and helps him roll Zito onto his side.

Mulder’s hands are shaking pretty badly, the entire time. Hudson presses things into his hands, and Mulder wants to ask how Hudson knows about the little inside pocket of Mulder’s suitcase where he keeps that stuff, and Mulder absurdly wants to stop and carefully explain to Hudson that he only uses that for jacking off, because god knows Mulder doesn’t fuck around with guys. But Hudson’s fingers are fumbling with his, so slippery it’s like they’re both made of water, and Hudson is rocking against Zito, so Mulder figures maybe he should just roll with it.

He’s listening to Zito curse softly, his face turned into the pillow, and watching Zito’s hand run up and down Hudson’s side, watching Hudson kiss him over and over again. Hudson slips his boxers off and angles against Zito, moving in time with their chests together, snapping his hips. Mulder presses in and Zito sounds like he’s in pain, but his hand winds around Hudson’s back and he pushes back against Mulder and says, very quietly, “please.”

There’s a moment, when Mulder’s fucking Zito and Hudson is whispering things into Zito’s ear that make Zito shudder and tighten and whimper (“next mulder’s gonna suck my dick and you can watch, man, yeah?” and then Mulder tries to stop listening because he won’t be able to hold out if he hears any more of that), Hudson’s hand on Zito’s face and Mulder’s hand on Hudson’s hip, and Mulder opens his mouth on Zito’s shoulder blade, wanting no part of a life where this is denied him.

* * *

3\. Before

There was a bar. That’s pretty clear. But it was just a regular bar, East Coast bar with smoke in Mulder’s eyes and girls looking up at him, tipping their heads back. A sweet-faced boy, a hard good-looking man, and Mulder’s eyes cleared, realized that was Zito on his left and Hudson on his right, and Mulder laughed.

They went back to the hotel and the others were behind some door, happy excited sounds coming out into the hall, but Zito walked right past like he knew where he was going, and leaned against his shoulder on the door to Mulder’s room.

Hudson was walking along beside him and sometimes their arms touched, when one of them sort of lost his balance and tilted in. Zito was yawning, watching them come.

Hudson was drunk because he was talking even slower than usual, and Zito was drunk because he was running the tip of his tongue over his lips and yawning. Mulder was drunk because he was noticing stuff like that.

Mulder fumbled for the key and Hudson put his hand on Zito’s arm to pull him off the door and Mulder was looking at Hudson’s hand, perfectly formed and everything just right, so that Mulder could see the knuckles and the tendons and the small dent on the inside of Hudson’s wrist. Zito’s fingers were all chewed up, and Mulder had these gawky oversized hands that were like something out of a cartoon, but Hudson’s hands looked exactly like they should.

He let them into the room, and Zito crawled onto the bed first thing, because for Zito, any time that was spent standing could be better spent sitting, and any time that was spent sitting could be better spent lying down. Hudson crouched in front of the minibar and was pulling out all the little bottles, lining them up by order of height. Mulder turned on the television and sat on the end of the bed.

It was strange, because almost always one of them went to whatever room the party was in, and Hudson usually got to bed earlier than Mulder or Zito, and no matter what the press wanted to think, the three of them were hardly inseparable. They didn’t usually hang out, just the three of them.

But it was okay. Hudson was saying, “You want the whiskey or the vodka, man?” and Zito was chanting behind him, “Bailey’s Bailey’s Bailey’s, I get the Bailey’s,” and Mulder was thinking that whoever had invented a liquor that tasted like candy might as well have just named it ‘To Get Barry Zito Hammered.’

Zito kicked him in the back so that he’d move because that Heineken commercial he liked was on, and Mulder scootched back on the bed until he was sitting against the headboard and Zito’s head was by his elbow, a pillow punched into shape. Hudson sat cross-legged by Mulder’s feet and there was a little pick-up-stick pile of miniature liquor bottles on the bed in front of him, his fingers playing across them and Hudson was smiling a little bit, looking tired and cool and glad to be where he was.

Mulder took the vodka, and he was drunk enough that it didn’t even hurt going down. Hudson sipped the whiskey like he was on a back porch or something, all the time in the world, and Zito happily licked at the tiny mouth of the Bailey’s, humming and his tongue flickering out between his lips over and over again.

They watched some bad television and talked in circles about Mulder’s new car, pretty dark-green Jaguar, and what they were gonna do for Mulder’s birthday (strip club, was the general consensus, because that’s what Kielty wanted to do, and it was his birthday too, and Mulder was always down with the strip club. “’Kay, but lame,” Zito kept saying, totally unoriginal, we can do that anytime, and Mulder kept elbowing him in the head, telling him, “didn’t we take you to Lazer-Tag and buy you Slurpees on your birthday, didn’t we do that? You’ll get a lapdance and be happy about it, punk”). They talked about a lot of stuff that got confused and didn’t make much sense, and Zito would end up giggling and pressing his face into Mulder’s arm, and Mulder would roll his eyes to see Hudson smirk.

There were small empty bottles on the bed, and Mulder realized that Zito’s face was still against his arm, though Zito wasn’t laughing anymore. Hudson was looking at the television, rubbing his knuckles thoughtfully across his chin. Mulder poked Zito’s head. Zito’s eyes were closed, and he mumbled something, turning his head so that his mouth was on the sleeve of Mulder’s shirt, and Mulder could feel Zito’s teeth even and sharp.

Mulder made some kind of sound, something like hey or quit it, something not like either of those at all, and then Zito pushed up and did this lazy kind of roll with his whole body so that he was on his side, pressed all along the line of Mulder, and then he was dragging his mouth across Mulder’s shoulder. His eyes were still closed.

Mulder just stared, his stomach all hot and in knots and his mind cut loose like a helium balloon. Zito’s hand was crawling up his arm, brushing his chest, and pulling his shirt away from his neck, and then Zito’s mouth was on bare skin, licking like Mulder was made of chocolaty liquor, and Mulder felt the gasp slice into his lungs, but didn’t hear it.

Hudson did, though. And when Mulder shot a panicked glance his way, Hudson was just watching them, very still with his hand half-curled into a fist and resting on his knee. His eyes looked hard and flat and the color of slate. Zito bit Mulder’s throat and pushed his hand across Mulder’s stomach. Mulder watched Hudson’s throat swallow.

“Tim.”

Later, Mulder would have no idea whether it was him or Zito who’d said that. Later, he decided that it probably didn’t matter.

Hudson winced like he’d be stung, and his hands were fiddling with one of the bottles. Zito was up to Mulder’s face, almost, quick sucking kisses under his jaw and his fingers tapping messages on Mulder’s cheek. Hudson’s eyes shot away and looked at the window, but the shades were drawn. It was only television light, whisking along unnoticed, and Hudson said with his voice very tight, “Right, well, I’ll. Go on an’. Go. If y’all are. Um. I’ll go.”

And Mulder was about to say, fuck man, I’ll go with you, because what the _fuck_ , but then Zito hit a specific spot that Mulder had never told anybody about ever, because saying stuff like, please right there, embarrassed the fuck out of him. It’s just under his ear, for future reference. Just where his jaw meets his throat.

Zito hit it perfectly with teeth and tongue and Mulder short-circuited, and turned, and kissed him, kissed him hard and pressed Zito down into the bed. Zito tasted very sweet and very warm, and he was eager and open beneath him. When Mulder pulled off, his head carbonated, Hudson was still on the end of the bed, staring with his mouth open a little bit, wet like he’d licked his lips.

Zito’s arm was around the back of Mulder’s neck, and he was shifting impossibly up against him, twisting his hips and smiling. He pulled Mulder down and whispered in his ear, “Get him over here, dude.” He slid his hand down the back of Mulder’s shirt, wide flat hand on Mulder’s back and Mulder kissed him again, bit his lip.

Then he pulled away, and sat up, and grabbed a fistful of Tim Hudson’s shirt and hauled him across the bed, because if you’re gonna fuck up a little, you should fuck up a lot.

* * *

4\. Order of Things

Chavez says to Zito, “What the fuck?” sometime before batting practice, his eyes caught like lint on Zito’s neck, pulling Zito’s collar out. Zito hits his hand away, and Chavez leers at him.

“When did you get lucky, fuckin’ holding out on me now?”

Over Chavez’s shoulder, Mulder is watching them, his mouth small. Zito shrugs and makes sure his collar is over the mark (the mark, what, and Mark over there, and Zito’s hungover enough for his head to be hurting just thinking about all this), and mutters something that probably doesn’t make much sense.

He sees Mulder turn away. Zito thinks futilely that Mulder knows Zito’s a tactile drunk, always rubbing up against people and folding against them on couches. Mulder should have known better than to let him get that drunk when they were all on the bed together.

Zito remembers most of it now. He’s pretty sure it was his fault.

*

Mulder runs into him in the trainer’s room. Mulder is just there getting some tape. Zito’s at the table with a heat pack on his back. Mulder comes in and Zito’s head turns and Zito looks at him with an expression of clean surprise, very familiar, and Mulder blinks, takes his eyes away.

Mulder’s working on breathing, his hands in the cabinet, when Zito says low, “I’m sorry.”

Mulder freezes, but then his shoulders fall and he turns. Zito is staring somewhere to the left of him. His face looks strange and hard. “I’m really sorry.”

Zito’s wearing his wristwatch and no shirt, the strap of the heat pack across his stomach and his chest looking smooth and untouched. With a roll of tape around his wrist, Mulder steps to him and says, “Listen-”

But Zito’s already up and moving, fluttering newspaper pages in his wake, and Mulder’s left standing there.

*

Hudson pitches and not much happens. Zito chews his nails at one end of the dugout and Mulder tears up a bunch of Gatorade cups at the other. Hudson doesn’t look at either of them.

After the game, he takes his wedding ring out of the little zip pocket he keeps it in on road trips, and slides it back on. He’s watching SportsCenter in the lounge, waiting for the bus to come to take them to the airport, and Zito comes in and sits next to him on the couch.

Zito’s quiet for two commercial breaks, then he reaches and touches the back of Hudson’s hand, two fingertips careful on the ring, and Hudson closes his eyes, doesn’t open them until he’s sure Zito is gone.

*

They never mention it again.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't mind completely disregarding the last line of this story, there is [a sequel](http://archiveofourown.org/works/263290).


End file.
